Transcendental Meditation is a technique made popular in recent years by director David Lynch. Lynch has been an active user and advocate since the early 1970s, crediting the practice to his creativity and happiness.
In 2005, Lynch started the David Lynch Foundation, which is dedicated to bringing the practice to children who have experienced trauma, such as gun violence and domestic abuse.
At this year’s Festival of Disruption, Lynch’s art and music festival based in Los Angeles that benefits the David Lynch Foundation, Bill Hader, Reggie Watts and Shepard Fairey shared with The Hollywood Reporter their experiences with transcendental meditation while frequent Lynch collaborators like Sheryl Lee (who played Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks) and Twin Peaks producer Sabrina Sutherland expressed their admiration for the director.
Hader specifically mentions that he started practicing TM during his tenure at Saturday Night Live. “I was having a really hard time getting through shows,” the actor explained. “A friend of mine said you should listen to David Lynch’s book, Catching the Big Fish, and I listened to that and wanted to [meditate].” Hader said that people have different experiences with TM but that he took to it right away, pointing out that he can look back at episodes of SNL and pinpoint the before and after of TM. “I can totally see it. I was just having fun for a change.”
